“Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.” ~Kurt Vonnegut
How “why bother” moments can shape a life
We all come to the place of “why bother” at some point in our lives, about something. Why bother to keep reaching out to a friend who never reciprocates? Why bother to put in new kitchen cabinets if you could be transferred next year? Why bother volunteering for an organization that continuously criticizes you?
These “why bother” moments are often accompanied by frustration, resentment, maybe some resignation, all of which give us feedback that it’s time to make a change. In the “why bother” moments we either realize that we have a choice, and must find the courage to make that change, or we drop into hopelessness, that creates an inertia, if we believe there is no possibility of change. We believe there is no possibility of change either because we are too afraid of the consequences, or are not willing to do what it takes to find our way through to change. The can lead to a cycle of frustration and despair that shapes a bitter life.
For example, after the economic downturn several years ago, when the bubble burst and real estate crashed and people lost jobs, there were many bitter couples who would normally have separated, but could not mange two households due to finances. I witnessed a great deal of anger and depression in couples who could not find a positive answer to “why bother”, and yet felt they had no choice but to remain together. Since they clearly didn’t come to me for financial help, I figured they had some hope that something could be done.
I suggested to one couple who were in total despair that they make it their goal while living in separate parts of the house to cooperate and collaborate and become rock-star co-parents for their 3 kids. Forget trying to get any emotional or sexual needs met by each other, but focus on being good parents, and on being kind to each other. Not only did they do that, but they found a way back to each other in the process. Even if they had not, the entire family would have benefited from the new and improved alliance.
When you can’t find a good answer to “why bother?
If the situation is dire enough, this hopelessness can become the despair that leads a person to want to die—the ultimate exit, the ultimate change. For instance, if a person has a great deal of physical pain and continues to see specialists and alternative practitioners and finds no relief, he may come to the place of wanting to take his life. He cannot find an answer to “why bother” that makes any sense, based on the history of no change, and the present situation has become intolerable.
In such moments, the inability to imagine a changed future can cast a dark shadow over a person’s spirit. Without the hope of change, many do take their lives. In 2017, there were 47,173 recorded suicides, up from 42,773 in 2014, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 24% between 1999 and 2014, from 10.5 to 13.0 suicides per 100,000 people, the highest rate recorded in 28 years.
Several months ago, I saw a program on suicide by Sanjay Gupta, involving a young man who had jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. This young man said that the day he jumped, he had made a deal with himself that if any single human being had offered him a gesture of kindness, he would not have jumped. Since that did not happen, and he survived, he had found a really big reason within himself to truly bother, and was in the process of fighting for a suicide prevention net to be put on that famous bridge.
I then saw a show about a woman who had also seen the show about the young man who survived. While driving with a friend, she saw a man about to jump, and remembered that kindness could be so powerful as to prevent another suicide. The two women had their “why bother” moment and saved that man’s life.
I recently heard that the first young man had succeeded in getting that suicide prevention net installed, and was beyond joyful!!!
Kindness as the answer to “why bother”
If so many more people are not finding a life-affirming answer to the question, “why bother,” and are falling prey to the disease of despair, it would seem to me that we need a collective infusion of hope and possibility.
That normally comes from leaders, but……well, we cannot count on that at this moment.
The answer to “why bother” has a great deal to do with knowing your big why, the overarching and central reason you do what you do. For example, you may be an attorney whose big why is to defend people who have suffered from medical malpractice because you personally know the pain of that injustice in your own life. You may be an artist whose big why is to self-express in a world where people are controlled and conditioned by outside forces.
But many people don’t know their big why, and even if you do, it does not guarantee that you will always know the answer to “why bother.” “Why bother” asks you to reach yet deeper into your heart to find the answer. “Why bother” asks you to find a life-affirming answer in the midst of helplessness and hopelessness. You don’t find the answer to “why bother” without touching your own deep pain.
“Why bother” asks you to drop your ego, which leads you to believe you can make a difference, to continue to do what you do even if the difference is not recognized by others, and possibly not even by you at the time.
“Why bother” asks you to think beyond yourself to how others would be affected if you did or didn’t bother, and to find within yourself a generosity to care about that. It doesn’t tell you what to do, but it gives you the reason to make the choices you make.
The best answer to “why bother” is that you care. Maybe it’s that you care enough about yourself to leave a harmful situation, or you care enough about someone to let them know how you truly feel. You have to care to bother.
I have always associated caring with kindness, and I see kindness as evidence that someone cares. Here is an exert from my favorite poem, called “Kindness,” by Naomi Shehab Nye:
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
May we find the answer to “why bother” by knowing kindness as the deepest thing inside.
